Saturday, June 04, 2011

I am very upset at Kansas and Missouri Republicans for failing to do anything about improving jobs and development over the past 5 years–and its getting worse.–kAS

The GOP’s (Non)Solution to the Jobs Crisis? Tax Cuts!http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/pdf/supply_side.pdf

The GOP’s prescription for our economic woes is like one of those old bottles of patent medicine you see in museums — dusty, completely ineffective, peddled by hucksters, and probably containing something that will make you even sicker. Nevertheless, this morning’s very dismal jobs report has the GOP reaching for some of that old-time medicine yet again.

House Republicans used this morning’s bad news as an opportunity to call a press conference to trot out their plan for “job creators” (that’s conserva-speak for the wealthy and major corporations). This plan is of course a tired re-hashing of the same old failed policies that drove us deep into recession and debt. Here are the lowlights:

A massive tax cut for the wealthy (the top rate would be cut by almost one-third)A massive tax cut for corporations (the top rate would be cut by almost one-third)A permanent loophole to let tax-dodging corporations game the system to avoid paying taxes on their overseas profitsMore deregulationMore trade dealsMissing from the plan? Any new ideas or anything that would in fact create jobs for the millions of Americans now out of work. If this so-called plan sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same “plan” that President George W. Bush had, and it borrows the same massive tax breaks that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) included in his ruinous and extremely unpopular budget plan. Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress, sums it up like this:

This plan is a rehash of the same unsuccessful plan that led our economy into the Great Recession during the Bush administration. The problem then and now with the top Republican goal of economic policy—to make the top income earners in our society even more incredibly wealthy—is that it undercuts our nation’s prospects for a prosperous future.

We’ve been down this road before, and it didn’t end well.We certainly haven’t found a cure-all for our economic woes, but we should say no to more snake oil from the GOP.